Intro:GameplayThe Line is primarily a third-person shooter with emphasis on squad-based tactics. The player controls Captain Martin Walker who is accompanied by a Delta Force bravo team to rescue a U.S. Army Colonel who remained behind in Dubai. To accomplish this goal, players must traverse the city to neutralize enemy threats and natural disasters to find and recover the lost Colonel, named John Konrad. As the player progresses, better weapons and equipment will become available to accomplish goals more easily. Squad commands will also be available, allowing the player to direct their teammates to perform certain actions or move to certain areas.[5][6]

The game focuses on the natural sandstorms of Dubai to provide dynamic terrain changing during gameplay, similar to Fracture and the Red Faction series. This is supported by an unpredictable engine that randomizes when and where sandstorms will arise, as well as how harsh they will be. Sandstorms may open or close paths to the players as well as turn advantages in a firefight.[5][6]

A multi-player mode will be included as well, though the extent of this has yet to be revealed. Yager describes the multiplayer as a campaign that expands the single-player experience. In addition, there will be multiple mode types with at least a few focusing on terrain deformation and expansion.[5][6]
Plot

Although in the Spec Ops series, The Line does not take any story elements from previous games, but rather introduces its own storyline. The game will follow the story of player character Captain Martin Walker (voiced by Nolan North) as he is sent into a post-catastrophe Dubai with an elite Delta Force bravo team. Previously, Dubai was a wealthy area with many high profile citizens until catastrophic sandstorms left a majority of the city buried. This caused many to evacuate, leaving only a few behind. One of the people left behind was U.S. Army Colonel John Konrad (a reference to the author of Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad), a founding member of Delta Force, who refused to evacuate from a training facility in the city and instead remained behind with the men under his command to help protect the citizens that could not evacuate. After several weeks of no contact, the Army fears that Col. Konrad and his men are lost to the destruction of the city until a weak distress signal is picked up. This gives the Army reason to deploy the player and their squad, who must infiltrate the city, neutralize outlaws and survive sandstorms as they attempt to determine what happened to Konrad and his men. Through the narrative in the trailer and sound clips from the game’s website it is hinted that Konrad may not have entirely genuine motivations for remaining in Dubai against orders.[5][6]
Development

Following the release of several Spec Ops games in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the series was met with low sales and poor reviews, causing a halt on any production in successive games. In 2003, Take-Two mentioned in their financial results that Rockstar Games was working on the franchise but in early 2005 the project was canceled for unknown reasons. [7] [8] It was later revealed that Rockstar Vancouver was the developer of the canned project [9] with singer Josh Homme developing the soundtrack for the game.[10]

From 2005 to 2009, the series remained largely unmentioned with the rights belonging to Take-Two Interactive. Then, on December 12, 2009, a ninth game in the series was announced and titled Spec Ops: The Line. A trailer was accompanied that depicted several minutes of gameplay and showed off the new setting. This trailer confirmed the title as well as several game features including the third-person perspective, the dynamic terrain elements, as well as the setting. A subsequent press release detailed the premise, other game features, and a possible 2011 release date. An official site was soon launched, and a new trailer was released in November 2011.[5][6] The official release date is now set at June 26th 2012.
Beta

A multiplayer beta was announced for the game from 2K Games during E3 2010, which is on Xbox 360 only. The Beta was shut down on November 15, 2010.

• Minimum:
  • Windows XP SP3
  • Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2GHz / AMD Athlon 64 X2 Equivalent
  • 2 GB RAM
  • 6 GB HD space
  • 256 MB Video Memory
  • NVIDIA GeForce 8600 / ATI Radeon HD 2600XT
  • DirectX Compatible Sound Card
  • Steam client

  Recommended:

  • Windows Vista/7 OS
  • 2.4 GHz Quad Core processor or bette
  • 3 GB RAM
  • 10 GB HD space
  • 512 MB Video Memory or more
  • NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX/ATI Radeon HD 4850 or better
  • DirectX Compatible Sound Card
  • Steam client